The
typical Chairman's Update usually includes a rundown on the various trips
I take around the state on behalf of the RPT. This past month however,
almost all of my trips consisted of walking between the RPT headquarters
and the State Capitol to talk to legislators about our priority items, as
well as to monitor the progress of bills before committees. We are
reaching the point in the session when we are getting close to crunch
time. The following is a breakdown on some of the key legislation we are
working on, and the stage of the process the legislation is at:

HOUSE BILL 12 - Sanctuary City
Bill

This bill has been voted out of House
committee, but has yet to be voted on by the House or the Senate. It has
been placed on the House emergency calendar for May 6th.

HOUSE BILL 15 - Sonogram Bill

This bill has been voted out of the
House and an amended version of the bill has been voted out of the
Senate.

SENATE BILL 14 - Voter ID Bill

This bill has been voted out of the
House and an amended version of the bill has been voted out of the
Senate.

SENATE BILL 18 - Eminent Domain
Bill

This bill has been voted out of the
House and an amended version of the bill has been voted out of the
Senate.

SENATE BILL 100 - MOVE Act / Federal Primary Act
Election Bill

This bill has been voted out of the
Senate but sets a primary date in March, rather than the party's
preference for an April date. The Senate version could cause the Texas
GOP to lose half its delegation at the National Republican Convention in
2012. We plan to work hard over in the House to get the bill
amended.

HOUSE BILL 150 - House Redistricting
Bill

A redistricting map has passed the
Texas House and is awaiting action in the Senate.

HOUSE BILL 600 - State Board of Education
Redistricting Bill

A redistricting map has been voted out
of the Senate and the House.

HOUSE BILL 900 - Congressional Redistricting
Bill

Has been filed, but no action taken by
the Senate or the House.

SENATE BILL 31 - Senate Redistricting
Bill

Has been filed, but no action taken by
the Senate.

In
addition to my work on behalf of the priority items of the state party,
SREC member Jason Moore, our redistricting chairman, has
been meeting with state legislators to voice concerns of the grassroots
and to emphasize that the party wishes for maps to be drawn to not only
maximize the number of Republicans but to also enhance the chances of
conservatives being elected. My staff has also been working to advise
individual representatives of the party's platform positions. I personally
have been fielding a high volume of emails and calls on various bills as
well as redistricting. I want to assure you that I not only pay attention
to these, but I do inform our elected officials as to the sentiment of the
grassroots as reflected by these communications. I also do my best to
personally respond to each email and phone call. This last month, I had to
spend a considerable amount of my time doing so, due to the high
volume.

Spending most of my time in Austin this month also
allowed me to spend some additional time on continuing my efforts to
revamp our administrative functions as well as focus on our fundraising
program. These efforts resulted in our determining that our in-house email
list needed further updating. We have been able to add the names of
approximately 15,000 Republican activists to our lists. These include new
contributors to the party, as well as precinct chairmen from around the
state. We also determined that when I arrived approximately only 30% of
all delegates and alternates to the last convention were on our email
lists. We have increased that number to about 70% and we are making plans
to attempt to get the remaining email addresses from the other 30%.
Meanwhile, our new organizational director Beth Cubriel
has been working diligently to systematically contact county leadership to
obtain the names of additional precinct chairs and county leaders so that
we can add them to our lists as well. It is hoped that the end results of
these efforts will yield the largest and most current list of conservative
Republican activists in the state, which then can be utilized to activate
Republicans to work in campaigns and on behalf of legislation.

On the fundraising front, our new director of finance
Keri Mason, continues to do an outstanding job. She is
planning a drive to contact all of our delegates and alternates to the
last state convention to ask them to sign up for our Grassroots Club,
which will reduce our fundraising costs and increase the importance of the
grassroots contributor. She also organized a fundraiser for us in San
Antonio with Senator John Cornyn. Unfortunately, due to
the Senator having to stay up in Washington DC during the budget crisis,
the event was postponed. Nevertheless, several contributors went ahead and
sent in money anyway, so we were able to gross $13,000 from this
non-event. Keri has also been organizing a fundraiser for us on May 10th,
2010 in Midland at the Racquet Club at 5:30pm, hosted by former Mayor and
former National Committeeman Ernie Angelo, Dick Saulsbury and Jose
Cuevas, to name a few. If you have an interest in attending,
please contact Keri at RPT headquarters. So far, the event has raised
approximately $20,000. Overall, we continue to pay all invoices to zero at
the end of every month and our cash balance continues to remain above
$600,000 although we expect this to decrease over the barren summer
months.

On the
communications front, Chris Elam continues to develop our
new RPT website and is very close to launching this new project.
Additionally, he has spent a great deal of his time in past weeks
examining our internal databases and working with Beth and Keri to improve
our database with new names and update old ones. He and Keri have also
started working on a series of plans to enhance our fundraising over this
next election cycle and I'm looking forward to accomplishing these
proposals.

On the
youth development front, our youth director Austen Bailey
has published a new issue of the New Texas Forum which is our fourth issue
and we have ordered several thousand copies to be distributed at several
college campuses around the state. You can view a copy of this online.
Austen also helped to organize a new Teenage Republican organization
previously announced - view
the link here.

We
continue to evaluate whether or not it will be worth holding a
presidential straw poll this fall. We previously had been evaluating the
Travis County Exposition Center but have determined that of the three
available weekends were not workable as one conflicted with Austin City
Limits music festival, another one was too late in the year, and the third
weekend conflicted with Yom Kippur. If we can determine that enough
Presidential candidates will participate and we can find a location which
is practical, then we will probably move forward with the straw poll as
long as it appears as though it will at least pay for itself. Look for a
future email on providing your input on this important topic.

Back at the
beginning of April, Vice Chairman Melinda Fredricks came
by with a group of young people from Montgomery County and it was a
pleasure to speak with this group of students. Additionally, I
was able to make a few trips around the state this last month. On
Saturday, April 2nd I was able to attend the Collin County Reagan Day
Dinner as a guest of county chairman Fred Moses. The
event was exceptionally well attended and I thank Fred for his
hospitality. The keynote speaker was Congressman Allen
West, who electrified the crowd. I also had a chance to travel to
Pearland and speak to the Pearland Area Republican Women's Club on April
19th, and attend the swearing-in of Judge Ken Wise in
Harris County. I also was invited to attend the Texas Public Policy
Foundation featuring Reagan economist Arthur Laffer,
which was a very interesting event. Last week, I was pleased to meet with
U.S. Congressman Joe Barton who came by the RPT
headquarters to discuss redistricting and offer his support for the
RPT.

The
next meeting of the SREC will be on June 3-4, for anybody who would like
to attend. We will be releasing the results of the annual audit at that
time.

We are
entering the final stretch of the legislature this next month. This will
be a critical time for our party as I believe our electoral prospects are
dependent on our elected officials enacting a conservative Republican
agenda. I urge all my fellow Republicans to redouble their efforts in
support of our priority bills. Keep up your support for our Republican
officials and let's work together to end up with a successful
session.